Recently, several kinds of golf balls exhibiting both high bounce resilience and a soft feel when hit have been proposed. One example of such a golf ball is a multi-piece golf ball in which the ball is composed of a plurality of layers. Generally, in a multi-layered golf ball, especially in a golf ball that has three or more layers, a highly rigid core is covered with an interlayer that has relatively low rigidity, and the outer surface of the interlayer is covered with a hard cover. This arrangement aims to attain both high bounce resilience and a soft feel when hit by using the rigidity of the core and the softness of the interlayer. One example of such a multi-piece golf ball is disclosed in Japanese Examined Patent Publication No. 1991-52310.
However, such heretofore-known multi-layered golf balls aim to achieve both a long carry distance attained by the high bounce resilience property and a soft feeling when hit, which are inherently conflicting properties. Therefore, their performance in terms of carry distance may be unsatisfactory and there is room for further improvement.